Mafia Figure On Way Back To Jail

Ex-convict Pleads Guilty To Money Laundering

May 19, 1998|By LARRY LEBOWITZ Staff Writer

One of Broward County's most prominent organized crime figures is on the verge of returning to prison, this time for laundering more than $1 million for undercover agents posing as Colombian crack dealers and hiding his interest in two local strip joints.

Thomas Farese, a capo regime or ``made'' member of the Colombo crime family, is fighting to minimize his sentence in a multi-day sentencing hearing that began on Monday in U.S. District Court in Miami.

Farese, 55, of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, pleaded guilty in January to one count of money laundering conspiracy. On Monday he angrily said he wanted to fight the charges but could not afford the risk that his wife and co-defendant, Suzanne, might also go to prison.

Suzanne Farese, 46, is the daughter of the late Alphonse Persico, the Colombo under-boss who ran the family in the late 1970s after his brother, Carmine Persico, was sent to prison for 100 years. Prosecutors have agreed to drop the charges against Suzanne Farese as part of her husband's plea deal.

Farese started out as a small-time hood from Boston, with a string of arrests dating back to the early 1960s. But by the mid-1970s, he was one of Fort Lauderdale's most prosperous dope-smuggling mafioso.

In 1973, Farese was charged with possessing a stolen painting and convicted of interstate transportation of forged securities.

He served the last 10 months of a 10-year sentence at a prison camp in Pensacola where he befriended the late Nicholas Forlano, a ``made'' member of the Colombo family and one of New York's biggest loansharks.

After their respective releases in 1974, Forlano and Farese settled in South Florida where Farese hatched a far-reaching criminal enterprise under the legitimate cover of the Olympic Corp.

Farese ran the show from a tiny office atop the Bridge Restaurant at 3200 E. Oakland Park Blvd.

Olympic ran two Broward restaurants and nightclubs, a realty firm, a charter aviation service, three ocean-going shipping lines, two banks in the Cayman Islands, a coin-machine company and a movie production company.

Hanging in the restaurant lobby was a caricature of Farese smoking a cigar, sitting behind a desk covered with miniature banks, movie cameras, ocean freighters and a money bag covered with dollar signs.

Farese was such a good earner that in July 1978 he earned his ``button'' _ Mafia parlance for initiation as a ``made'' with certain protections and privileges in the Colombo family.

But it all came crumbling down with his indictment and conviction in 1980 for large-scale marijuana smuggling and other criminal enterprises.

Farese was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Shortly after his release from prison in 1994, he became the target of another federal investigation.

DeRosa, 70, manager-operator of Club Pink Pussycat in Hialeah, was enlisted to launder lots of small denomination bills to larger ones for easier transport back to Colombia.

DeRosa, who was forced to cede ownership of the club to his wife after a 1990 tax-evasion conviction, introduced the undercover drug dealers to Farese.

Farese maintained hidden interests through family and loyal associates in Goldfinger, 3801 N. University Drive, Sunrise, and Club Diamonds, 1000 N. Congress Ave., West Palm Beach, because his 1980 conviction precluded him from obtaining a state liquor license.

Between April and November 1995, undercover DEA agents delivered $1,157,080 in purported drug money to Farese associates in 12 separate exchanges.

They started small, but eventually worked their way up to $200,000 apiece. Along the way, the mobsters collected more than $95,000 in commissions.

And federal agents collected thousands of hours of incriminating wiretaps on strip joint, home and cellular phones detailing Farese's leadership and supervision of the money laundering operation.

Farese, alluding to his smuggling days, bragged to the undercover agents about his own Colombian connections.

They also discussed laundering larger sums through South Florida check-cashing stores and strip clubs, Italian marble sales and ventures in Guatemala, Switzerland and New Jersey.

The sentencing continues this morning at U.S. District Court in Miami before Chief Judge Edward B. Davis.